Music and Words

Through the many traces that Robert Schumann scattered, his creative career began, the album for the Jugend op. 68 (1848) occupied a single time: piccola «domestic encyclopedia» of form, styles and sentiments conceived – in the author's words – to «educate the hand, heart and ear» of the children. This page is quiet in the house of Dresda, raging in Europe and motifs of the '48; The fine pedagogical instruction is that it is a tradition: the generation of a heritage of musical and moral values, quasi a less known destination at a higher pace and at a distance. In the first letter from Endenich to Clara (30 September 1854) Schumann evokes proprio that album, the progression of the daughters "with Beethoven and Mozart, his above all with this album". The pension of op. 68 knows an ideal person for the international padre, not – by letter – of Robert and Clara. The card, portrait until 5 May 1855, and the ultimate surviving conjugal dialogue before the silence that precedes the death of the composer (29 October 1856). The current registration is not intended to integrate the album for youth, but is a selection from part of the books, approached in an ordinary narrative with chronological information, makes a poetic journey through childhood, focuses on the scope and nostalgia of adults. The miniature pianist sounds at intervals through the epistolary extracts – swears in the voice of the advocate and the dubbing artist Pino Insegno – makes speech and sound cooperate at the cost of a unique fluid dramaturgy: the music of the letter, the letter is restored with a biographical profundity or sounds. All the special physiognomy of the project contribute to the interpretation of Giorgio Carnini, pianist and organist of international fame: some numbers of the Album have been transcribed and performed on the organ – unprecedented work on disc – for the purpose of enhancing the contrapuntal and choral components latent in the pieces, As the timbre of the table is amplified in a domestic cornice, in Schumann, does not exclude that the liturgical liturgy of traditional Lutheran is repeated. The dialogue with the savory pianism and the organ-instrument après-new auditive perspectives, highlighting, on the one hand, the ideal connection for Hausmusik and church music; Moreover, the dimension «miniatures in miniature» is represented by Schumannian. The path opens with the very famous «Melody» (no. 1) – generative germ of the entire collection – to arrive, through stages of childish liveliness («Wild Knight» no. 8, «Herald of Spring» no. 13), to moments of inner contemplation («Fugue» no. 24, «Little Study» no. 14), until the closing entrusted again to the «Herald of Spring», quasi to seal a rhythmic cycle of hope. The epistolary texts are grafted and proceed from a narrative: the memory of the children, the joy for the arrival of the ultimate time, the admiration for Brahms, the anguish of the ultimate silence. In this case a mosaic of op. 68 As you see the reality of reality and imagination: part of the card from Endenich, the geographical map of Schumann – as it will – determine a future idea. The alternating current between pianists and organists, which is played with spoken word, manifests itself in a chiaroscuro-like atmosphere of poetic Romanticism: an impulse of music, the whole shadow of loss; And while you maintain control, you can get a «happiness reachable». For Clara there is a double tribute: to Clara Wieck, pianist, wife, interpreter and tireless custodian of the Schumannian heritage; While Robert is engaged in the intimidation he knows in art, he thinks of the future and will develop a repertoire of teaching capacities without using the technology of his interior. Note starting from the introductory text by Vincenzo De Vivo for the concert «A Clara, Da Clara»